


Before

by Sangerin



Category: Stage Door (1937)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-03
Updated: 2005-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 01:58:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangerin/pseuds/Sangerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The history of Jean Maitland</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before

Jean longed to wake up in the morning with another warm body squashed into the narrow bed beside her. Before Terry arrived, there had been Kaye. And before there was Kaye, there was Annie. With Kaye one had to be serious. Kaye was a fragile china doll in need of protection — being with her demanded that one wrap her up in one's arms and keep her safe from the world. With Annie one simply couldn't be serious. Life for Annie was one glorious game, and if life was a game, then love was an amusing pastime.

Annie flirted with everyone, but only those who were looking for it noticed. That was the way things worked. She and Jean formed a dancing pair, and she flirted harder, until Jean began to flirt back. They went to the drugstore for ice cream sodas and chattered incessantly about New York and dancing and acting and the dream of working somewhere other than dingy nightclubs. They walked about the streets, arms linked and smiling broadly. Life with Annie was constant laughter; from the moment she and Jean met in the dining room over breakfast until she slid from under Jean’s bedclothes and left Jean’s room in the middle of the night.

Annie didn’t care about getting caught. She simply preferred sleeping in her own bed and waking up alone. One night, Jean persuaded her to stay, and when she woke up on the floor with a bruised behind, she looked up at Annie’s restless but sleeping form and grimaced. As Jean picked herself up, Annie flung out a hand and hit Jean on the forehead. The next time it happened, Jean shoved Annie off the side of the bed, and she woke up grinning. Thereafter Annie would stroll unconcernedly through the halls to her own room. And Jean woke up alone.

When Kaye arrived at the Club the girls flocked around her. At first she was novel and interesting – she had a mysterious past that she discussed with no-one, and she was undoubtedly the prettiest of all the members of the club. Later she was a raging success and her shining face was a beacon among the other girls, so starved for what she had achieved. Jean was by her side through all those months, and stayed with her until Kaye pushed even her away.

Jean’s love for Kaye was a desperate love, the love one tends to have for someone on a pedestal. She spent more time on keeping Kaye comfortable than on her own career. If it hadn’t been for Annie – level-headed, amiable Annie who had never once complained at being replaced by Kaye, but just moved on, looking for someone else to join her in the game of living life – Jean’s dancing career would have failed completely. Jean made tea for Kaye in her dressing room, and brought her books and searched the city for pretty ribbons. They went to teashops together and sat up late curled together on Jean’s bed holding each other close. Sometimes Kaye would cry on Jean’s shoulder about the life she’d left behind, and sometimes she could forget all that and revel in the life she had now. Kaye would fall asleep nestled against Jean, who would sigh and hold her close, knowing that she had to wake Kaye before morning.

Kaye was nervous, and didn’t want to be found in Jean’s room if Linda ever came home from her trysts with Anthony Powell, which Linda never did. Kaye would slip out the door in the dead of night, ignoring Jean’s entreaties. It would have caused less attention to slide into the early morning rush for the bathrooms, but Kaye was Kaye, and she did things the way she wanted to: quietly but firmly. And Jean woke up alone in the mornings.

When Terry arrived at the Footlights Club, and after Jean had hated her, and once Jean began to love her, everything changed. She never woke up alone again.


End file.
